"I will Always Love You" is #7.. i thought after around 18 months after the first appearance a song can no longer appear, it has been 18 years.

http://www.billboard.com/#/news/whitney-ho...006203562.story

 

They explain the changes in this article. Seems that from now on, if a song qualifies to be in the top 50 it will do so. Seems fair enough to reflect public interest, and it is in line with the 20-week limit on the rest of the chart still.

Any recurrent rule at all categorically does not reflect public interest. Great to see this part of the rule revoked but the rest of the rule is still there.

While I understand Billboard's reasons for implementing recurrent rules on the Hot 100 (giving new songs/artists a better chance to have a hit on a chart that isn't "clogged" by older songs), it does create a chart that doesn't provide a 100% representation of what people are listening to and buying.

 

At least now any "recurrent" that would chart at #50 or above is allowed to re-enter the Hot 100, so it's nice that the most recent Hot 100 has I Will Always Love You at #7, a true representation of the sales/airplay it received in the 24 hours after her death (in the US, the chart week ends on Sunday night). IWALY is still sitting at #2 on iTunes, so with a full week of sales (and some airplay), it might even climb a bit next week.

I don't see how anyone can make complaints with this new leniency of this rule. Best of both rules really, it still stops most random surges, as they often don't go far enough to officially make top 50, but it does acknowlodge the extreme cases when a song really is one of the most popular of the week, such as when Michael Jackson died, and indeed this week with Whitney's death.

I don't see how anyone can make complaints with this new leniency of this rule. Best of both rules really, it still stops most random surges, as they often don't go far enough to officially make top 50, but it does acknowlodge the extreme cases when a song really is one of the most popular of the week, such as when Michael Jackson died, and indeed this week with Whitney's death.

I wasn't complaining, I follow the charts and this confused me so I asked here.

"I will Always Love You" is #7.. i thought after around 18 months after the first appearance a song can no longer appear, it has been 18 years.

 

You must have been thinking of the album chart because Hot 100 has never had such a rule. Technically it's possible for a song to chart *forever* if it has enough points to stay in top 50. The record is 76 weeks, "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. "Rolling in the Deep" has 18 weeks to go to match that.

 

However, on The Billboard 200 album chart this rule of 18 months took place a couple of years ago until they allowed old albums to chart again.

Edited February 17, 201213 yr by SKOB

You must have been thinking of the album chart because Hot 100 has never had such a rule.

 

Why did Michael Jackson not chart when he clearly had multiple songs that sold enough to be top 50 then?

If "Billie Jean" could've stayed in Hot 100 from 1982 to this date without dropping out of top 50, it'd had charted in 2009 as well :P

 

So regarding OLD songs which have dropped out, Billboard indeed changed the rules (see the link above) but that 18-month-rule has never been part of Hot 100.

Edited February 17, 201213 yr by SKOB

If "Billie Jean" could've stayed in Hot 100 from 1982 to this date without dropping out of top 50, it'd had charted in 2009 as well :P

 

But the same surely applies to 'I Will Always Love You' which clearly has been allowed to chart again?

The old rule for the Hot 100 was that only in "special circumstances" was a recurrent song allowed to re-chart. For example, after 9/11, Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" and Whitney Houston's "The Star-Spangled Banner" had a resurgence in airplay and were re-released as CD singles, so Billboard let them re-chart.

 

At the time of Michael Jackson's death, I don't think Billboard considered allowing his songs and albums to re-chart because they weren't being re-released (as in the 9/11 examples above). Billboard changed the rule after lots of complaints. The week after his death, Michael Jackson would have had several singles re-enter the Top 50, probably a few even in the Top 10. And the most glaring non-event was that the album Thriller sold the most copies that week, but was nowhere to be found on the Billboard 200 because it was a "catalog" album.

 

While it's unfortunate for Michael Jackson's chart history, at least Billboard had enough sense to adjust the rules so the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 -- the two "big" US charts people focus on -- better reflect the true sales and airplay of the week they are tracking.

Yes.

Greenwood's God Bless America didn't re-enter though, it was a new version of an old song which debuted back then. It had never appeared on Hot 100 before the 9/11.

I think what is being meant is the song can stay around for ever, but it couldn't reenter after 18 months. It doesn't really require that much logic....

I personally don't understand how Whitney charted at 7 off one days sales....

From Saturday evening Feb. 11 until late Sunday Feb. 12, I Will Always Love You sold 195,000 copies, enough to make it #3 on the sales chart for the week. This, combined with some airplay of the song during the same time period, gave it enough total points to reach #7.

From Saturday evening Feb. 11 until late Sunday Feb. 12, I Will Always Love You sold 195,000 copies, enough to make it #3 on the sales chart for the week. This, combined with some airplay of the song during the same time period, gave it enough total points to reach #7.

Did you even read the rest of the thread?

Yes, I did read the rest of the thread, so your sarcasm is completely unnecessary. My previous post was in response to jkac's comment "I personally don't understand how Whitney charted at 7 off one days sales." I responded that the one-day sales were so high (195,000 copies) that, when combined with the one-day airplay, IWALY was #7 for the week.